My aim is to offer insights into some of the more subtle principles underpinning prints. The commentary is based on thirty-eight years of teaching and the prints and other collectables that I am focusing on are those which I have acquired over the years.
In the galleries of prints (accessed by clicking the links immediately below) I am also adding fresh images offered for sale. If you get lost in the maze of links, simply click the "home" button to return to the blog discussions.

This attribution is based on Richard W
Wallace’s (1979) description of the plate in the second state:

“The ear of the figure seated in the
left foreground removed by being burnished out. His hair worked over with light
drypoint. Light drypoint shading added to the tree trunk behind his head. Small
amount of light drypoint shading added to Plato’s drapery at his right shoulder,
to the cap and drapery of the figure farthest in depth at the right, and to the
drapery of the figure in the foreground at the extreme right. Light drypoint
added to several portions of the background foliage especially near Plato. Some
additional burnishing of the ground and background foliage.” (Wallace, p. 273)

Condition: richly inked, well-printed,
crisp impression trimmed along the image borderline. The sheet is in near
faultless condition but the lower right corner has a few nibbles/losses.

I am selling this large etching by Rosa—one
of his largest prints!—for AU$410 in total (currently US$303.48/EUR262.27/GBP233.45
at the time of posting this listing) including postage and handling to anywhere
in the world (but not, of course, any import duties/taxes imposed by some
countries).

If you are interested in purchasing this
masterwork by Rosa, please contact me (oz_jim@printsandprinciples.com) and I
will send you a PayPal invoice to make the payment easy.

This print has been sold

To make this very large print by Rosa
extra interesting to contemplate, the British Museum holds a preparatory study for
it executed in black and red chalk with pen and brown ink.

At first glance the preliminary drawing and
the etching may seem very different, but close examination shows that the
seated figure at the lower right in the drawing is a mirror image of the same
figure on the left in the etching (as one would expect through the printing
process). Going further the almost silhouetted hands of the standing figure in
the near foreground of the drawing have been retained in the design of the etching.

For me, Rosa’s retention of these hands,
caught in a momentary gesture of communication with Plato, is pivotal to the
expressed meaning of the composition. After all what is portrayed in the scene
is a discourse between Plato and his followers.

Beyond the compositional connections
linking the drawing and print there are some significant differences that I
find surprising. For example, Rosa has changed the arrangement of the two
standing men behind the seated chap on the right of the drawing. From my
standpoint in comparing the two compositions, I believe that the intimate
interaction of these figures in the drawing is lost in the changes to the same
figures in the etching.

Rosa’s portrayal of Plato is another major departure in the designs of the two compositions. Again from a
personal standpoint, I find that the etching’s arrangement which shows the
great philosopher in a seated position makes Plato seem diminutive and almost
lost in the composition compared to the standing pose in the study. Going
further, I also find that the leg of the seated man in the immediate foreground
of the drawing pictorially “pushes” Plato back into the centre of the ring of
his followers, whereas in the etching showing the seated figure’s leg less in
front of Plato adds a note of spatial confusion to the composition.

(Of course, these observations are
strictly personal responses and everyone will have different readings when
comparing the chalk study with the etching.)